Vessels drawing up to 13 feet could enter the river. In the middle of 1887 a few electric lights were established along the quays from the river mouth to the first bridge, and one light also on that bridge, so that steamers could enter the river after sunset if desired. The wharfage is wholly occupied by steamers and sailing-craft trading within the Archipelago. The tides are very irregular. The rise and fall at springs may be taken to be five feet.
Up to 1887 ships needing repairs had to go to Hong-Kong, but in that year a patent slip was established at Cañacao Bay, near Cavite, seven miles southward from the Manila Bay anchorage. The working capacity of the hydraulic hauling power of the slip was 2,000 tons.
At Cavite, close by Cañacao, there was a Government Arsenal and a small slip, having a hauling power of about 500 tons.
Up to the year 1893 the streets of Manila City and suburbs were badly lighted—petroleum lamps, and sometimes cocoanut oil, being used. (The paving was perhaps more defective than the lighting.) In 1892 an Electric Light Company was formed, with a share capital of ₱500,000 (₱350,000 paid up) for illuminating the city and suburbs and private lighting. Under the contract with the Municipality the company received a grant of ₱60,000, and the concern was in full working order the following year. The poorest working class of Manila—fishermen, canoemen, day labourers, etc.—live principally in the ward of Tondo, where dwellings with thatched roofs were allowed to be constructed. In the wet season the part of this ward nearest to the city was simply a mass of pollution. The only drainage was a ditch cut around the mud-plots on which the huts were erected. Many of these huts had pools of stagnant water under them for months, hence it was there that the mortality from fever was at its maximum ratio in the dry season when evaporation commenced. Half the shore side of Tondo has been many times devastated by conflagrations and by hurricanes, locally termed báguios.
La Escolta—The principal street in Binondo, the commercial quarter of Manila.
Binondo presents an aspect of great activity during the day. The import and export trade is still largely in the hands of British merchants, and the retail traffic is, to a great extent, monopolized by the Chinese. Their tiny shops, grouped together in rows, form bazaars. At each counter sits a Chinaman, casting up accounts, with the ancient abacus[4] still serving him for practical reckoning. Another is ready at the counter to strike the bargain, whilst a third crafty Celestial lounges about the entrance to tout for custom, with a margin on his prices for haggling which is high or low according to whether the intending purchaser be American, European, half-caste, or native.
There is hardly a street without Chinese dealers, but their principal centre is the Rosario, whilst the finest American and European shops are to be found in the Escolta.[5]
In 1881 a great fire occurred in the Escolta, and since then the class of property in that important thoroughfare has been much improved. In October, 1885, a second serious fire took place in this street, and on the site of the ruins there now stands a fine block of buildings formerly occupied by the Central Post Office and Telegraph Station, and a row of good shops in European style.
During the working hours were to be seen hundreds of smart Chinese coolies, half-naked, running in all directions with loads, or driving carts, whilst the natives dreamily sauntered along the streets, following their numerous occupations with enviable tranquillity. In the doorways here and there were native women squatting on the flag-stones, picking lice from each otherʼs heads, and serving a purchaser between-times with cigars, betel-nut, and food, when occasion offered.